Re: What was your first outboard?

[wedgie]

quote joesnuffy:

In the summer of 1987 I was in college after completing a tour as a mechanic in the Army in Germany. I had recently gotten married and the wife and I would go up to the lake and just set in our VW bug and look at the boats in the marina. I told her one day we will have a boat. About 1988 I found a 500 dollar ski boat it had a 1961 75hp Evinrude on it that turns out had a lot of issues. I went to the dealer for parts and that’s when I found out that outboard motor parts were not cheap by any means. The guy at the dealer must have felt bad for me and gave me a phone number for an old timer he said had lots of older parts. Turns out he did and that is how I started learning and fixing boat motors. He took me under his wing teaching me all kinds of things about my boat motor. He sold me a 1961 power head for my motor that couldn’t have had 10 hours on it if that much. He helped me build a set of gears which included grinding the dog, seals etc for the lower unit. W’hen we got done that boat would stand straight up in the water when I gave it the throttle my buddies that had new boats wanted to ski behind mine. The old guy had tons of parts all in coffee cans and new exactly where to go to get what we would go through them and pick the best one for my engine. We even made a starter pawl out of stainless he said that would last forever not like the plastic one that was on there. It did it was on the motor when I sold it. Wish I had never sold the motor now but I have gone on to own some truly great boats now. I owe that guy a lot.

Joe

I’d like to hear how you went about grinding the dog ?